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Greetings from Tumumcari, New Mexico: BUSINESS AS USUAL

My wife and I are on a summer road trip, a loop from California extending as far east as New Orleans (we hope). While on the road I am continuing to solve and post, although I may not be as prompt in posting or responding to messages as I would like. I hope you can understand! After braving mountain lions and rattlesnakes for the wholetrip, horseflies managed to shoo us off the hiking trails in Palo Dura Canyon today. We also visited Cadillac Ranch near Amarillo (not quite Stonehenge) ... Bill

CROSSWORD SETTER: Ian Livengood & J.A.S.A. Crossword Class THEME: Mark My Words … five squares in today’s grid contain a punctuation mark that works with the across-answer. That same punctuation mark is spelled out to provide letters for the down-answer. In my grid, the various punctuation marks are represented by numbers:

Today's Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across12. Gotham police procedural : CSI: NY
“CSI: NY” is the best of the CSI franchise of television shows, in my humble opinion, since the original “CSI” set in Las Vegas went off the boil a few years ago. Stars of the New York show are Gary Sinise and Sela Ward.

19. Body of water on the Uzbek border : ARAL SEA
The Aral Sea is a great example of how man can have a devastating effect on his environment. In the early sixties the Aral Sea covered 68,000 square miles of Central Asia. Soviet Union irrigation projects drained the lake to such an extent that today the total area is less than 7,000 square miles, with 90% of the lake now completely dry. Sad ...

21. Post-1968 tennis : OPEN ERA
In the sport of tennis, the Grand Slam tournaments were opened up to professional players, and not just amateurs, in 1968. So, the period since 1968 has been called the Open Era.

23. Magic, once : LA LAKER
Magic Johnson’s real name is Earvin Johnson. Johnson was born and grew up in Lansing, Michigan. Earvin earned the nickname “Magic” when playing basketball in high school, after one particularly great performance on the court.

25. CVS competitor : RITE AID
What we know today as Rite Aid started out as one store in Scranton, Pennsylvania in 1962. Rite Aid is now the biggest chain of drugstores on the East Coast of the United States and has operations all over the country.

28. Gotham-bound luggage letters : LGA
Fiorello La Guardia was the Mayor of New York from 1934 to 1945, racking up three full terms in office. The famous airport that bears La Guardia's name was built at his urging, stemming from an incident that took place while he was in office. He was taking a TWA flight to "New York" and was outraged when the plane landed at Newark Airport, in the state of New Jersey. The Mayor demanded that the flight take off again and land at a small airport in Brooklyn. A gaggle of press reporters joined him on the short hop and he gave them a story, urging New Yorkers to support the construction of a new commercial airport within the city's limits. The new airport, in Queens, opened in 1939 as New York Municipal, often called "LaGuardia" as a nickname. The airport was officially relabeled as "LaGuardia" in 1947.

Gotham had been a nickname for New York City long before it was picked up by comic books as a setting for Batman tales. The term was coined by Washington Irving in a periodical that he published in 1807. Irving was lampooning New York politics and culture, and lifted the name from the village of Gotham in Nottinghamshire, England. The original Gotham was, according to folklore, inhabited by fools.

32. Group with the monster 1994 album "Monster" : REM
R.E.M. was a rock band from Athens, Georgia formed in 1980. The name “R.E.M.” was chosen randomly from a dictionary, apparently.

34. Like the dish kimchi : KOREAN
Kimchi is a traditional dish from Korea. The original kimchi is made from fermented vegetables, and is pretty strong stuff …

38. "Aida" figure : PHARAOH
"Aida" is the famous opera by Giuseppe Verdi, actually based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette, who also designed the costumes and stages for the opening performance. The opera was first performed in 1871 in an opera house in Cairo. In the storyline, Aida is an Ethiopian princess brought into Egypt as a slave. Radames is an Egyptian commander who falls in love with her, and then of course complications arise!

41. Preserve, as fodder : ENSILE
“To ensile” is to store in a silo.

Silo is a Spanish word that we absorbed into English, originally coming from the Greek word "siros" that described a pit in which one kept grain.

48. Sugar suffix : -OSE
The sugar we consume as "table sugar" is mainly sucrose that is extracted from sugar cane and sugar beet. We also consume lactose that naturally occurs in milk, and fructose that naturally occurs in fruit. But most of the sugar we eat or drink tends to be prepared commercially, the most famous being high-fructose corn syrup, which is glucose that is industrially processed into a glucose/fructose mix. Don't get me started on the politics of food ...

51. Show tune with the lyric "Here am I, your special island" : BALI HA’I
The song "Bali Ha'i" is from the musical "South Pacific" by Rodgers and Hammerstein. In the musical, Bali Ha'i is the name of a volcanic island that neighbors the island on which the story takes place.

53. Cosine reciprocal : SECANT
The secant (sec) is the ratio of the hypotenuse of a triangle to its adjacent side, and is the reciprocal of the cosine (cos), as we all remember from school ...

55. 1960s-'70s drama set in San Francisco : IRONSIDE
“Ironside” is a classic police television drama that first ran from 1967 to 1975. Star of the show is Raymond Burr playing the partially paralyzed former Chief of Detectives Robert T. Ironside. Ironside was forced to retire from the SFPD when he was shot by a sniper, but ended up as special consultant to the department.

64. Bitmap image : GIF
A bitmap is an image file format used to store digital images. Basically, each pixel in a bitmap file is stored as a “bit” of information, hence the name “bitmap”. In 1987, CompuServe introduced a new type of image file called the Graphics Interchange Format (GIF). A GIF image takes the same information as a bitmap and then compresses it, resulting in a smaller file size. However, during compression the image may lose some resolution.

67. 1968 movie directed by Paul Newman : RACHEL, RACHEL
“Rachel, Rachel" is a 1968 drama that was produced and directed by Paul Newman. This was the first film that Newman ever directed, and it was somewhat of a family project. The title character was played by Newman’s wife Joanne Woodward. Newman and Woodward’s daughter Nell Potts portrayed Rachel as a young child.

74. Chaney of "Of Mice and Men" : LON
Lon Chaney, Jr. followed in his father's footsteps as an actor, and most famously played the werewolf in the "The Wolf Man" series of films, starting in 1941. The young actor started his career using his real name, Creighton Chaney, but later adopted the name "Lon Chaney, Jr." getting a boost from his father's reputation. Chaney, Jr. also played Lennie Small in the 1939 film adaptation of the Steinbeck novel “Of Mice and Men”.

75. Beast that killed Adonis : BOAR
In Greek mythology Adonis is a beautiful young god loved by Aphrodite. Adonis dies in a hunting accident (gored by a boar), but not before he gives Aphrodite a child. Adonis was originally a Phoenician god "absorbed" into Greek lore (Phoenicia is modern day Lebanon). The child born of Adonis to Aphrodite was called Beroe, after which is named Beirut, the capital city of Lebanon.

80. Actor Quinn : AIDAN
Aidan Quinn is an Irish-American actor. Quinn was born in Chicago but spent some years growing up in Ireland.

84. What many op art designs appear to do : UNDULATE
Op art is also known as optical art, and puts optical illusions to great effect.

86. Fictional Indiana town where "Parks and Recreation" is set : PAWNEE
“Parks and Recreation” is a sitcom that started airing on NBC in 2009, and it is a show that has grown on me. It stars the "Saturday Night Live" alum Amy Poehler. The creators of "Parks and Recreation" are part of the team responsible for the American version of “The Office” so you’ll notice some similarities in the style of the two shows, and some actors that have appeared in both.

90. Space effect, for short : ZERO-G
The force of gravity that we all feel is referred to as “one G”. As gravity is a actually an accelerating force, acceleration is measured relative to that force of gravity. So, if we are sitting in a vehicle that accelerates at 3G, then we are experiencing a force that is three times that which we feel from the gravitational pull of the earth. Zero-G is weightlessness that is experienced when in space, outside the influence of the earth's gravity.

91. Word from Hamlet while holding a skull : ALAS
In Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”, there is a scene when Prince Hamlet holds in his hand the skull of the deceased court jester Yorick. Hamlet starts into a famous monologue at this point:

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy; he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is …

The opening line is often misquoted as “Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him well.”

92. Pince-___ : NEZ
Pince-nez are eyeglasses clipped to the bridge of the nose. "Pince-nez" is French, translating as “pinch the nose”.

94. Tony-nominated play made into an Oscar-nominated movie : FROST/NIXON
The British journalist David Frost is perhaps best known in the US for hosting the television show “Through the Keyhole” and for his celebrity interviews, most notably with former President Richard Nixon. That interview was adapted as a play and then a movie called “Frost/Nixon”. The movie was directed by Ron Howard. "Frost/Nixon" is a little slow, but it is a must see for political history addicts like me.

97. Paper size: Abbr. : LTR
Like so many things it seems, our paper sizes here in North America don't conform with the standards in the rest of the world. ISO standard sizes used elsewhere have some logic behind them in that the ratio of width to length is usually one to the square root of two. This mathematical relationship means that when you cut a piece of paper in two each half preserves the aspect ratio of the original, which can be useful in making reduced or enlarged copies of documents. Our standard size of "letter" (8.5 x 11 inches) was determined in 1980 by the Reagan administration to be the official paper size for the US government. Prior to this, the "legal" size (8.5 x 14 inches) had been the standard, since 1921.

98. Dance in 3/4 time : BOLERO
The name "bolero" is used to describe slow-tempo Latin music, and can be both a dance and a song.

105. B&O and others : RRS
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) was one of the oldest in the country. Construction started on the railroad in 1828 in order to offer a method of transportation inland from Baltimore. This was deemed necessary as the port city was losing business to New York City after the completion of the Erie Canal (which cheaply and efficiently moved goods inland).

110. 1945 Pacific battle site, informally : IWO
Iwo Jima is a volcanic island located south of Tokyo that today is uninhabited. There were about a thousand Japanese civilians living on the island prior to WWII. In 1944, there was a massive influx of Japanese military personnel in anticipation of the inevitable US invasion. As the Japanese military moved in, the civilians were forced out and no one has lived there since.

112. Abe : FIN
The US five-dollar bill is often called an “Abe”, as President Lincoln’s portrait is on the front. An Abe is also referred to as a “fin”, a term that has been used for a five-pound note in Britain since 1868.

119. Work from a folder : ORIGAMI
The Japanese word “origami” is derived from ori (folding) and kami (paper).

122. Island SW of Majorca : IBIZA
The Pine Islands is a group in the Mediterranean with two main islands, Ibiza and Formentera. Ibiza has for some decades been a pretty wild tourist destination for European tourists as it is noted for its frantic nightlife, although recently attempts have been made to calm things down and develop a more family-oriented vacation destination. Formentera is a less accessible island and is a quieter spot that is renowned for its nude beaches.

124. Old North State native : TAR HEEL
Tar Heel is a nickname for anyone living in, or from, the state of North Carolina. As such, it is the nickname also of the athletic teams of the University of North Carolina. No one seems to know for sure where the term "Tar Heel" originated, but it is thought to be related to the historical importance of the tar, pitch and turpentine industries that thrived in the state due to the presence of vast forests of pine trees.

126. Co-founder of Death Row Records : DR. DRE
Dr. Dre is the stage name of rapper Andre Romelle Young. Dr. Dre is known for his own singing career as well as producing records and starting the careers of others such Snoop Dogg, Eminem and 50 Cent.

127. Some ocean debris : JETSAM
Flotsam and jetsam are both terms used to describe “garbage” in the ocean. Flotsam is floating wreckage from a ship or its cargo. Jetsam is similar to flotsam, except that jetsam is part of a ship or cargo that is deliberately cast overboard, perhaps to lighten a vessel.

128. Pastime for Barack Obama at Camp David : SKEET
There are three types of competitive shotgun target shooting sports:

- Skeet shooting
- Trap shooting
- Sporting clays

Down1. English division : SHIRE
The word "shire" comes from the Old English "scir" meaning "administrative district". The term was replaced with county as far back as the 14th century, but the usage persists to this day, largely because some counties retain the use of -shire as a suffix (Derbyshire, Lancashire etc.).

2. Coastal Anatolian region : IONIA
Lydia and Ionia were ancient territories in a part of the world now covered by modern-day Turkey. Both territories eventually fell under Greek and then Roman rule.

4. Miss at the movies? : MONEYPENNY
Miss Moneypenny is a character appearing in the “James Bond” novels and films. Moneypenny is secretary to M, the head of the British Secret Service. In the movies, there is always a little flirtation between Bond and Moneypenny, but in the original stories, the relationship is above board and very professional.

6. Twaddle : BALDER(DASH)
"Balderdash" means a senseless jumble of words, and was originally (back before the late 1600s) a jumbled mix of liquids, like maybe beer and wine, or even beer and milk!.

9. There's no escaping this : BLACK HOLE
A black hole in space is a region that is extremely dense and one that has an enormous gravitational field. The force of gravity is so great that not even light can escape, so all that can be observed is “blackness”, which gives the phenomenon the name of "black hole". It is believed that black holes form when large stars reach the end of their lives and collapse in upon themselves.

12. Apple core, briefly : CPU
The Central Processing Unit (CPU) is the main component on the "motherboard" of a computer. The CPU is the part of the computer that carries out most of the functions required by a program. Nowadays you can get CPUs in everything from cars to telephones.

15. One of the usual suspects? : (COLON)EL MUSTARD
Colonel Mustard is one of the suspects in the board game “Clue”.

Clue is another board game that we knew under a different name growing up in Ireland. Outside of North America, Clue is marketed as "Cluedo". Cluedo was the original name of the game, introduced in 1949 by the famous British board game manufacturer Waddingtons. There are cute differences between the US and UK versions. For example, the man who is murdered is called Dr. Black (Mr. Boddy in the US), one of the suspects is the Reverend Green (Mr. Green in the US), and the suspect weapons include a dagger (a knife in the US), a lead pipe (lead piping in the US) and a spanner (a wrench in the US). I think it's a fabulous game, a must during the holidays ...

16. Org. with an eagle in its logo : NRA
The National Rifle Association (NRA) used the slogan “I’ll give you my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands”. These words became quite famous when they were used at an NRA convention in 2000 by Charlton Heston, who was then president of the NRA. Heston ended a speech he made with the words “From my cold, dead hands!” while holding up into the air a replica of a Sharps rifle.

20. "Blues in the Night" composer Harold : ARLEN
Harold Arlen is a composer of popular music, forever to be associated with his composition “Over the Rainbow” from “The Wizard of Oz”, regarded by many as the greatest song of the 20th century.

21. Certain sultan's subjects : OMANIS
Oman lies on the southeast coast of the Arabian Peninsula and is neighbored by the OAE, Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

26. Country with a supreme leader : IRAN
Before 1935, the country we know today as Iran was called Persia by the Western world. The official name of the country since the Iranian Revolution of 1979 is the “Islamic Republic of Iran”.

33. Source of the line "What's done is done" : MACBETH
Although William Shakespeare did not coin the phrase “What's done is done”, his use of the expression in his play “Macbeth” is the first recorded instance. Lady Macbeth expresses the sentiment twice:

- "Things without all remedy Should be without regard: what's done, is done"
- "Give me your hand. What's done cannot be undone. – To bed, to bed, to bed!"

40. 1/24 of un giorno : ORA
In Italian, an hour (ora) is 1/24 of a day (un giorno).

42. "___ Miz" : LES
The 1980 musical "Les Misérables" is an adaptation of the 1862 novel of the same name by Victor Hugo. The show opened in London in 1985, and is the longest running musical in the history of London's West End. My wife and I saw "Les Miz" in the Queen's Theatre in London quite a few years ago, but were only able to get tickets in the very back row. The old theater's seating is very steep, so the back row of the balcony is extremely high over the stage. One of the big events in the storyline is the building of a street barricade over which the rebels fight. At the height we were seated we could see the stagehands behind the barricade, sitting drinking Coke, even smoking cigarettes. On cue, the stagehands would get up and catch a dropped rifle, or an actor that had been shot. It was pretty comical. I didn't really enjoy the show that much, to be honest. Some great songs, but the musical version of the storyline just didn't seem to hang together for me.

52. '90s-'00s Britcom : AB FAB
“Absolutely Fabulous” (sometimes shortened to "Ab Fab") is a cult-classic sitcom produced by the BBC. The two stars of the show are Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley.

54. Month after Av : ELUL
Elul is the month in the Hebrew calendar that occurs in August-September.

59. Tom Cruise's character in "Mission: Impossible" : ETHAN
It was Tom Cruise’s idea to adapt the “Mission Impossible” television series for the big screen, and it became the first project for Cruise’s own production company. Tom Cruise took on the starring role of Ethan Hunt in the movies, the point man for the Impossible Missions Force (IMF).

63. Hägar's wife in the funnies : HELGA
"Hagar the Horrible" is a comic strip that was created by the late Dik Browne and is now drawn by his son, Chris Browne. "Hagar the Terrible" (not "Horrible") was the nickname given to Dik by his sons.

67. ___ Laënnec, inventor of the stethoscope : RENE
The word "stethoscope" comes from the Greek word for "chest examination". The stethoscope was invented back in 1816 in France by René Laennec, although back then it looked just like an ear trumpet, a wooden tube with flared ends.

71. Bridge dividing the San Marco and San Polo districts : RIALTO
The Rialto is the financial and commercial center of Venice, and has been so for centuries. One of the most famous features of the area is the Rialto Bridge that spans the Grand Canal.

72. Early 20th century, in British history : EDWARDIAN (PERIOD)
The Edwardian era in the UK started with the death of Queen Victoria in 1901 and the succession to the throne of her son, King Edward VII. The period was known for increased interest in women’s suffrage and continued industrial development. The era ended with the death of the king in 1910, and was soon followed by the catastrophe that was the First World War.

73. Pink-slips : CANS
The term "pink slip" can be used as a verb meaning "to terminate an employee". No one really seems to know for sure where the term originated, but there are lots of stories.

76. Answer man? : ALEX TREBEK
"Jeopardy" first went on the air in 1964, and is another successful Merv Griffin creation. But it took the introduction of Alex Trebek as host in order to bring the show into the big times. Trebek has been host since 1984.

77. Old West casino game : FARO
Faro is a card game somewhat akin to Baccarat that was popular in England and France in the 18th century. Faro made it to the Old West, where it became a favorite of Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp. The origin of the name "Faro" is unclear. One popular theory is that Faro is a contraction of ‘pharaoh’ given that Egyptian motifs used to be common on playing cards of the period. There’s another theory involving the usual suspects: Irish immigrants and famines …

79. Pump option: Abbr. : REG
The difference between a premium and regular gasoline is its octane rating. The octane rating is measure of the resistance of the gasoline to auto-ignition i.e. it's resistance to ignition just by virtue of being compressed in the cylinder. This auto-ignition is undesirable as multiple-cylinder engines are designed so that ignition within each cylinder takes place precisely when the plug sparks, and not before. If ignition occurs before the spark is created, the resulting phenomenon is called "knocking".

82. Itch cause : ECZEMA
Eczema is a form of dermatitis. The term “eczema” comes from the Greek for “to boil over”.

85. Yom Kippur War weaponry : UZIS
The first Uzi submachine gun was designed in the late 1940s by Major Uziel Gal of the Israel Defense Forces who gave his name to the gun.

The Yom Kippur War started on October 6 in 1973 with a surprise move by Syria and Egypt into the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights. The conflict quickly escalated into a confrontation between the US and the Soviet Union, as both superpowers rushed arms to the opposing states. Within a week, Israeli forces had regained the land that had been lost and two weeks later had advanced within striking range of both Cairo and Damascus. A UN brokered ceasefire brought the war to an end on October 25, after just 19 days of fighting.

87. Record producer Brian : ENO
Brian Eno started out his musical career with Roxy Music. However, Eno's most oft-played composition (by far!) is Microsoft's "start-up jingle", the 6-second sound you hear when the Windows operating system is booting up. Eno might have annoyed the Microsoft folks when he stated on a BBC radio show:

I wrote it on a Mac. I’ve never used a PC in my life; I don’t like them.

93. Twisty-horned creatures : ELANDS
A eland is a large African antelope, in fact the largest on the continent.

95. "Halloween," e.g. : (SLASH)ER FILM
I really, really don’t do horror films. The one exception seems to be the original “Halloween” movie, starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Pleasance. To me, this first movie in the “Halloween” series is more in the style of Hitchcock’s “Psycho” whereas the sequels were just chock full of gore and graphic violence.

96. Opportunity creator : NASA
There have been six rovers sent to Mars in all. Mars 2 landed in 1971, and failed. Mars 3 landed the same year, and also failed. Mars Pathfinder landed in 1997 (what a great day that was!) and operated from July through September. Spirit landed in 2004, and is still operating today. However, Spirit is now bogged down in sand, but will continue to operate as a stationary science platform. Opportunity also landed in 2004, and it is still going. And then Curiosity made a spectacular, hi-tech landing in 2012 and is really just starting its explorations of the planet.

107. Submit an online return : E-FILE
E-file: that's what I do with my tax returns each year. I saved myself a fortune by saying a polite "goodbye" to my tax accountant five years ago and trusting Turbotax instead.

108. "___ Q" (Creedence Clearwater Revival hit) : SUZIE
The song “Susie Q” was written by, and originally released by, Dale Hawkins in 1957. It was covered By Creedence Clearwater Revival (as “Suzie Q”) in 1968.

113. Dundee denials : NAES
The city of Dundee lies on the north bank of the Firth of Tay in Scotland. The origins of the name "Dundee" are a little obscure, although the omnipresent "dùn" in place names all over Scotland and Ireland is the Celtic word for "fort".

115. Cocktails with crème de cassis : KIRS
Kir is a French cocktail, made by adding a teaspoon or so of creme de cassis (blackcurrant liqueur) to a glass, and then topping it off with white wine. The drink is named after Felix Kir, the Mayor of Dijon in Burgundy, who used to offer the drink to his guests. My wife (expensive tastes!) is particularly fond of a variant called a Kir Royale, in which the white wine is replaced with champagne.

116. Letters on briefs : BVD
The men’s underwear known as BVDs are made by the Bradley, Voorhees & Day. The company was started in 1876 to make bustles for women, and is named for its founders.

117. Celtic water deity : LER
Although he can be called "Ler", in Ireland we usually refer to the mythical sea god as "Lir". We have a famous Irish legend that goes by the name of "The Children of Lir", in which Lir's children are turned into swans.

120. Post-1858 rule : RAJ
The period of colonial rule by the British in South Asia from 1858 to 1947 is referred to as the British Raj. Prior to 1858, the area was ruled by a private enterprise, the British East India Company. “Raj” is the Hindi word for “reign”.

As you can see from the grid above, I wasn't able to retrieve special characters either, and had to resort to the substitution of numbers. I download the puzzle from the "New York Times" website in Across Lite format, and use that program to solve. I can insert special characters with that program, but it's a limited collection of characters, one that doesn't include :,/- etc.

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About This Blog

This is the simplest of blogs.

I do the New York Times puzzle online every evening, the night before it is published in the paper. Then, I "Google & Wiki" the references that puzzle me, or that I find of interest. I post my findings, along with the solution, as soon as I am done, usually well before the newsprint version becomes available.

About Me

The name's William Ernest Butler, but please call me Bill. I grew up in Ireland, but now live out here in the San Francisco Bay Area. I am retired, from technology businesses that took our family all over the world.

Crosswords and My Dad

I worked on my first crossword puzzle when I was about 6-years-old, sitting on my Dad's knee. He let me "help" him with his puzzle almost every day as I was growing up. Over the years, Dad passed on to me his addiction to crosswords. Now in my early 50s, I work on my Irish Times and New York Times puzzles every day. I'm no longer sitting on my Dad's knee, but I feel that he is there with me, looking over my shoulder.

This blog is dedicated to my Dad, who passed away at the beginning of this month.